The present invention relates to a touch screen device and method for co-extensively presenting text characters and rendering ink in a common area of a user interface.
Many small electronic devices, such as personal digital assistants, smart phones, palm personal computers, etc., are now equipped with a touch-sensitive display screen as the primary mechanism for interacting with applications on the device and inputting information into the device. One form of input method which works well on a small device with a small screen is some form of handwriting input. In particular, many small devices currently use a graphical user interface (GUI) in which some region of the screen area (often one or more boxes) is dedicated as a writing area for handwriting input. Such use of the standard GUI can make very inefficient use of screen real estate, especially when it is necessary to display information (e.g., a message) to which the user wishes to respond and to display the user""s response while still displaying the dedicated writing area.
Thus, a need exists for a method and apparatus that allows a maximum amount of information to be displayed on the GUI while still allowing handwritten input on the touch screen device.